Message in a bottle

When we first moved to the beach, Claire and I often walked along the beach, sometimes I would take a pair of long tongs and a couple of garbage bags and pick up rubbish as we beach combed. One afternoon, I spotted a screw top peanut butter jar, a Kraft jar with a yellow plastic lid. The label had washed away to show a note inside the jar. I was so excited, finding a message in a bottle is like a never ending packet of Wagon Wheels, or summer school holidays that last forever. Imagining shipwrecked castaways in Tahiti, or a message from Gilligan's Island, I quickly unscrewed the lid, and with Claire beside me watching every move, we unfolded the message written in faded purple pen. So what did this mysterious message say? It said 'Be nice to your mother'. WTF? What kind of message is that? Who wrote it? Why did they throw it into the ocean? Bastards.

I gotta do something...

Sometimes I wish I could just mind my own business.

On Friday evening I came out of a funky bar/cafe in one of the Franco Cozzo suburbs, the suburb that residents proudly defend, but no one else likes (that I have a soft spot for). I sometimes drop in to catch up with some of my clever arty friends, they make me feel 'with it' in a groovy, cool kind of way. And as I approached my car parked near the creepy railway line, I could hear aggressive male voices from the other side of the line.

Yeah?
Yeah!
Come 'ere
Yeah?
Drop the knife,
Drop the knife,
Put the knife down
Come 'ere

I peered through the bushes and saw two young African men walking away from a ranting, swarthy looking young man following them and trying to get them into battle, he had a mate several meters away.

The bushes got in my way and I heard a big CRACK as a wooden stake was broken from the ground and the swarthy man calls the African guys back and is brandishing the stake over his head (the African guys were the ones with the knife) as the distance between them closed to about five paces.

By this time I am thinking, OMG, WTF? I had the car door open by now, so I got in the car, backed out and pulled up parallel to the train line, so I could get a better view. For a nano second I considered calling the cops, but by the time I got through the rigmarole of 'What's your name?', 'What is your date of birth?', 'What is the address', (which I didn't know, I just know where the place is), it would have been too late.

A million things went through my mind, I felt I needed to do something, and after quickly assessing my safety and escape route,I wound down my window and in my most psycho, fishwife, looney bin voice, I shouted out 'FUCK OFF YOU ARSE HOLES, AND GO HOME!' (Home, meaning house, not back to your country of origin, it wasn't about race).

The three of them froze, stunned, and looked around everywhere, trying to figure out where the voice was coming from. The knife carrying African dude spots me, almost visibly relaxes as he sees it's some crazy lady, and comes back with 'Suck my dick you fat bitch'. Hilarious! Glad he called me fat and not old! He must have seen my fat arms and double chin or something, ah, but most of the women are probably tall and thin where he comes from.

By this time, a few other people within earshot (probably all the way to the MCG) had stopped their business to see what was going on. I shouted back 'FUCK YOU. GO HOME' and so I could get the last word, I wound up my window and drove off. On the way home I was kicking myself - when he shouted his crappy insult, I should have said 'What?', so he had to repeat it, and then said 'I still can't hear you' that would have taken away more power. Or I could have said 'Give us a look first!'. Not to make light of the situation, but the aim was to put a spanner in the works and distract them from their blood lust.

I do feel a tiny bit traumatized, but that trauma would have been much worse if it had turned into a stabbing or a whack over the head with a long wooden stake. I don't know what happened after that, but I hope they gave each other dirty looks, mouthed off a bit and then melted away from the gathering attention.

Dazzle 'em will brilliance, or baffle 'em with bullshit

At my day job, I have the excellent title of 'Master Data Controller'. I like this title - I am a 'master' and not an 'apprentice', data could be viewed as gossip and I am a control freak (a lazy one though).

It is one of those jobs that you do in manufacturing that is hard to explain to an outsider (or even an insider) and words we use daily are ones like resin, extrusion, rates, yields, bom and route, bill of materials, costing errors and other boring stuff like that, and there are lots of codes like /NMD04 /NZS16 /NZPOIT (I call that one zedpooey)which make our role even more mysterious.

Below is part of my 'Big Boss's' Christmas message,it is a bit like when I read my own positive ebay feedback to make myself feel special.

"MASTER DATA (That's me!) - A challenging year with increasing formality and controls around compliance and Fusion. We have closed all but a few gaps between SAP and Fusion, and handed this over to the T&I group in better shape than it has ever been.
The master data team has grown scope in covering non-SAP sites and working closely to support the business. I have received very positive feedback from S&M, Quality, T&I, and Operations on how responsive MD (That's me!) is, and the finance people I speak with are all very complimentary on how co-operative the MD team is to work with on DMC reviews. Personally Master Data and GMC still remains a bit of a dark-art to me...something I hope to improve in 2012."

I can't understand why the other departments have been complimentary, maybe cause I kinda hold them to ransom, if they want something done, they have to be nice to me and I can be mean to them. For an example, when I worked in the same office as the T&I group,it was boys against girls. There were 11 of them (university educated, aged between 38 and 60)and me. I would set them against each other by singling out one and giving him extra attention, which would make all the other cry babies say 'what about me, why are you being so nice to him' and I would say 'Shut up soft cock' or something comforting like that. I suspect they were glad to get rid of me when I transferred to another department.

The other department that I work closely with (it's funny when a single employee becomes 'a department') has rules I make it follow. He is not allowed to ring or call me before 9.15 am, otherwise I ask him if he wants a smack (which makes him blush and stutter) and other rules that I make or change on the spot, like changing the time from 9.15 to 10 am. If he comes to my area unannounced I shout out 'Release the hounds', which makes him giggle, or if I know he is coming, I lock the door.

Or when the account managers call me for help with a transaction, I tell them they are dumb bastards, or DB for short, (which they should be able to cope with because sales people generally have HUGE egos), I wield my Master Data Controller specialist superiority and, once they admit to being dumb, I condescendingly help them and then they hang up thanking me profusely, grateful that I have solved their problem.

Well I shouldn't tell work stories, I might end up getting the sack like Andy Blume, I used to read his hate filled blog, it was like a train wreck and perversely I couldn't stay away from it.

Here is a photo to finish off, I like to collect dirty dishes on my desk all week and then leave them in the sink, it drives them bananas.